Infinite Limit

Announced on Saturday with the incredably short video below, Corvus Belli announced that they will be releasing a 3rd edition of their Game Infinity this year. 

With the success that was both MK II Warmachine edition and Malifaux 2e, I am cautiously excited. While I have been burned before on bad rules, the more modern redesign concept of miniatures games has in both cases I experienced, expanded the game and made for a better, more enjoyable rules set.

That will be no comfort for some, however.

Infinity is an interesting game, and occupies its own niche in the miniatures game world, both in rules and in theme. The game is set in the near future. Mankind has tamed space, and this has allowed great nations to rise to meet the great challenges. The ‘net has expanded ina great data Sphere, as has humanities influence among the starts. Until recently, there had been very little interaction with aliens of any type.  PanOceana, Yu Jing, and  Haqqiaslam fought wars of influence and stealth while the Nomads traveled the edges of civilization, purposely cutting themselves off from Aleph, the AI and controller of the Data Sphere and international politics. The discovered the first Colony from earth, lost and abandoned, and the Ariadnans joined the interstellar playing field. Eventually, however, they were contacted buy the Combined Armies of the EI – The Evolved Intelligence, seeking to engulf Humanity into its hegemonic empire. The newly discovered Tohaa, great enemies of the EI, have joined humanities fight against absorption.

The setting is good, but its not particularly mobile. Much of the background is exactly that. Like Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy, the Fluff bits, generally, define the world more thoroughly.

The visual niche is nothing to be dismissed, either. They make very fine and delicate 28mm true scale models. They are extremely detailed, and generally stay in scale with each other, with very few divergences. Its also very anime inspired in its models, both pose and overall design. its not for everyone, to be sure. I do like that it maintains the flavor, though, and has some of those super-futuristic developments in body armor and defensive weaponry, while maintaining a semi-modern offensive parallel. It definitely seems that defense has outpaced offense in the wars of the future.

But what will N3 bring us? Right now its speculation only, but there are a number of very good theories out there. Theories, though, because CB is not going to do, at least as it seems from here, a public beta or field test. I don’t know how I feel about this. Both Malifaux and WM/H did public field tests, and while there were some hiccups, there was a lot of good dialogue that came out between the creators of the game and the fans. There was also, in Warmachine, a sense of entitlement afterwards that made many people feel that they could engender change in the game, even after the field test. This has gotten much less, now, but it has taken a number of years.

CB looks to avoid the entitlement of players, but also will probably disenfranchise many. No edition change goes off perfectly, and no matter the changes, some people will always abandon the new in favor of the old. Some people are really resistant to change and can’t handle when things move forward: Though I will admit that forward is not always good.

I think, though, that CB is doing the right thing. They have grown up from a local game in Spain and Europe to a worldwide game. They have to see their growth and realize that the rules ambiguities and strangeness that they have had in the past need to be streamlined into a good, solid rules set.

Note: This does not necessitate simple.

To be honest, Infinity is one of the most complex games out on the market. It has a plethora of rules, a steep learning curve, is written in a foreign language, and can suffer from balance issues. Combined, it makes the game very difficult to learn, but a rewarding task when you finally do. Its one of the few games that truly leverages the battle of wits between to commanders. They can easily clarify the rules, clean up the language, and make combine redundant scenarios into single, understood concepts without loosing the feeling of the game.

Among the things I really want changed is the Loss of Lieutenant rule. The game has changed a lot in the years since they started running tournaments, with four turns becoming the normal length of a game. Given that time constraint, losing 25% of your game time to a Loss of Lieutenant situation is damning. While it is possible to guard against it with deployment, I think its an unnecessary complication to an already hard game. I think that there should be some detriment, but loosing your whole turn is extraordinarily brutal.

My extreme hope is that something is done with the link team rules. I’ve never personally liked them, and never enjoyed fighting against them. This is definitely the time to change them!  I don’t need them eliminated, but I’d really like them to be less overbearing.

Other things I’d like to see changed:
– Model profiles are “non-contextual” I would like to see even brief descriptions of rules along with the models.
-Weapons Damage matter more. Right now Burst is king
-Retreat and Impetuous made less weird
-Scatter. Right now its a strange setup.
-Surprise attacks codified
-True LOS  – I would love it if this was killed.
– CC has a Burst of 1. This lowers its value extremely, considering the danger you have to get into in order to actually fight in CC.

Well, thats about it. I’m really Looking forward to N3, and can’t wait until January. I know it’ll be out by then!

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